Comparative study on multifunctional behavior of La0.7Ca0.24Sr0.06MnO3 and La0.88Ca0.12MnO3 single crystals

Abstract

We have investigated electrical-transport, magneto-transport, magnetic and thermal properties of the hole doped La0.7Ca0.24Sr0.06MnO3 (LCSMO) and La0.88Ca0.12MnO3 (LCMO) single crystals, prepared using floating zone technique. The crystallographic direction dependence of metal to insulator transition (TP) occurs at 290 K along c-axis and TP = 280 K along ab-plane for LCSMO single crystal, while no electronic transition was observed over the whole temperature range under the magnetic field at 8 T for LCMO single crystal. Resistivity study shows that the TP is higher along the c-axis as compared to that in the ab-plane, so signifying more favorable hoping of electrons is along the c-axis in LCSMO. The ac-susceptibility study confirms that these crystals, revealing ferromagnetic to paramagnetic transition temperature (TC) at 277 K for LCSMO and TC = 118 K for LCMO single crystals, which is close to the sharp peak around TC in heat capacity data. For magneto-electric device application point of view, these cr...